Not Harry
by elanev91
Summary: 31 October 1981 - You know what story this is. One shot.


**Hello all - this story... it had to be written and I'm so, so sorry. I'm not going to lie, I cried through most of this.**

 **BUT if you do decide to read it, let me know what you think. I played around with sentence structure and style a bit to get it to _feel_ right, so... feedback is appreciated.**

 **Disclaimer: I obviously don't own these characters because I could never canonically do this to them**

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One of the cruelest things about it, it seemed, was that she didn't get to mourn him. But then again, maybe it was a kind of mercy in disguise.

Because the chance to mourn him might have flattened her, the time without him would be unbearable, might have made her bitter or angry or, worst of all, dead inside, and what kind of life is that? As it was, the moments since she'd heard him fall in their sitting room downstairs were stretching out before her, expanding in her mind and crushing the air out of her lungs and she fought for breath, for sanity, for control, for _something_ that would give her the illusion of her life back. Her life with James and Harry, lounging for hours on the sitting room sofa, James' legs kicked up on her lap while Harry flew circles around their heads on his toy broom, their family dinners with Sirius and Remus and Peter, _fucking Peter_ , she should have known, James had died, she knew, thinking the best of his friend, but now it made so much sense to her and she knew and she _hated him for what he was doing to her family and if she made it out of here she would kill him herself with her bare fucking hands_ but she knew she wasn't going to make it out of there, so she guessed it didn't matter. She didn't have her wand, neither of them had, they hadn't taken to carrying them and now she was realising just how stupid that was, but they'd been locked up in the house for months and months, and well you just get used to not having it. Her heart was pounding in her chest, blood flooding her brain and making her head scream with adrenaline and she was finding it so difficult to _focus_ that - he broke out, suddenly, into blood curdling screams and she felt her entire body go numb again.

Harry.

Harry, she realised, was all she had left, her only hope was to _protect Harry_ and she knew it probably wouldn't work but she had to _believe_ it would work because the alternative was unthinkable. Absolutely, totally, completely unthinkable.

So she pressed a kiss to his face and told him she loved him and moved furniture as quickly as she could, his screams filling her ears and her resolve was collapsing inch. by. inch. but she knew she had to keep going _for Harry, for Harry, for Harry_ so she told him she loved him as many times as her voice could croak it out and she moved furniture.

She imagined everything that his life was going to be, she had to because the desire to stop, to give in, to run away was overpowering her, but those weren't options, _they weren't fucking options_ because she was not about to watch her baby, her son die in front of her eyes, it was not happening, not tonight, so she imagined what his future would be like even though every idea, every image of Harry's future life was tearing her apart piece by piece because she knew that she wasn't going to be there to share it with him, that she would be missing it, that James would be missing it. She tried to imagine what their lives would have been like all together, teaching Harry how to read, surprising Remus when Harry read _him_ Babbitty Rabbitty for once, taking Harry to the train for the first time, but her brain shuddered under the weight, her hands trembled, and so she stopped trying to do that because what's the sense in making up stories for herself anyway, James was already dead and she was about to be.

Sirius and Remus will be good fathers, the _best_ fathers, not James of course, but still the best and that was the only comfort that she carried in her, her hands now red and angry and blistering, every muscle in her body screaming in protest as she pushed Harry's chest of drawers across his room, Remus and Sirius would protect their son, love him every day like he was their own, give him everything that James and Lily had wanted so desperately to give him. She couldn't do anything else now, every bit of furniture had been moved and she heard him coming up the stairs and she knew it was over for her. But not for Harry, never for Harry, so she turned and she held his small face in her hands, pressed her forehead against his and told him she loved him over and over and over and didn't let herself jump or move and even blink when she heard the door explode behind her and she felt pieces of wood raining down onto her back. This, her strength, this was going to be the last gift she could give to her son.

He was speaking to her, telling her to move aside, telling her he'll spare her, she can leave, he just wants Harry, but _like fucking hell_ she just kept screaming "Kill me, not Harry, please, kill me instead, take me, _leave Harry alone"_ and her voice was getting louder and louder the more she screamed, Harry was bawling behind her, so she reached back and pressed her fingers through the bars on his cot and Harry grabbed onto them instantly and her knees threatened to buckle immediately because she'd never feel this again, never be able to protect him again, no matter how much he needed her, she wouldn't be able to be there for him, she just hoped and prayed or whatever it was that she was supposed to be doing in the moment before she died that she could, somehow, right now, save him because she was willing to die for him, she _would_ die for him, she was going to die for him.

Her Harry. Her and James' Harry. Their son who _looked so much like James_ but he had her eyes and James had reminded her of this fact every day, telling her that he was glad, so glad, he'd inherited them because her eyes were the most beautiful things he'd ever seen and they couldn't believe that they'd made this baby, that Harry had come from them, because _how in the hell could they have made something so heart-stoppingly glorious?_ James would usually just laugh and bump his hip against hers, _Come on love, have you_ _seen_ _us? We're stunning_ and she would laugh and smack his chest because _damn it he knew what she meant_ , _how could something so beautiful come into a world in the middle of something so ugly?_

"Kill me, NOT HARRY," _I love you Harry, I love you, I love you, your father loved you, Harry, more than you can ever know_ and she squeezed his fingers through the bars and she wanted nothing more than to turn around and look at Harry one last time but she couldn't turn her back on him, wouldn't give him the chance to hurt Harry, no, he was going to kill her instead, any second because he was definitely livid now, _I love you Harry, we loved you so bloody much, more than you'll ever_

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 **Until next time xx**


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